KIDS COMIC CON 2014!

Thought I would share pics of this past weekend where I was hosting a drawing workshop at Kids ComiCon in the Bronx, NY. KIDS COMIC CON! 

I had a great time creating comics with the kids! 

There were some amazing young artists there!

 Here's a pic of me with my comic book artist team at KIDS COMIC CON! 

I was hosting a drawing workshop about creating comics in the Bronx, NY. These 3 girls where too cool and super excited about helping out! Thank you future artists!

Noel MacNeal with his fantastic drawings for THE HALLOWEEN LEGION comic! 

Showing some of my work, thanks to Lyntha The for the photo!

Here's Denny Daniel and I at his Museum of Interesting Things!  His antiques and inventions are so much fun and educational!

Little Spiderman here (though I'm so sorry I didn't get a full pic with him!) Did the coolest ending to THE HALLOWEEN LEGION™ STORY! I love the AUTUMN WINS illustration, too cool! The Halloween Legion™ Diana Leto and Martin Powell.

These girls had some amazing imaginations and great illustrations for the ending to this My Little Pony comic! Too much fun!

 

The amazing, engaging, and incredible Alexander Simmons shown with his amazing works! Thanks Alex for putting together KCC and for always being so inspiring! 

Kids Comic Con fun with Paul Castiglia and an Edison cylinder from the sublime collection of Denny Daniel's Museum of Interesting Things!

Some more fun pics of the kid's artwork and just fun comic times!

AUTUMN vs. THE RAT GIANT!

Here's a sneak peak of my in-progress artwork for the ONE TRIBE Benefit Anthology.
It's a Halloween Legion™  Fable entitled "AUTUMN vs. THE RAT GIANT!"
Enjoy all, I'll bring some more sneak peaks to KIDS COMIC CON!

Illustrated by myself and written by Martin Powell.
The Halloween Legion™ Diana Leto and Martin Powell.

The Halloween Legion™ is in the new Kids' Comic Con Anthology comic book!

Excited to announce that The Halloween Legion™ is in the new Kids' Comic Con Anthology comic book! 

http://t.co/1IXAwkMfGT 



“The KCC Comics Funhouse is first-and-foremost a celebration of comics for kids and a way to offer children safe and engaging entertainment,” -Alex Simmons, KCC organizer 


THE HALLOWEEN LEGION™ (co-owned by myself and Martin Powell) are grateful to be a part of the book and hope all the kids enjoy!

THE HALLOWEEN LEGION is nominated for the Rondo Award!

Martin Powell and I are thrilled that our HALLOWEEN LEGION™ has been nominated for the prestigious Rondo Award, as "Best Horror Comic" for 2013! The Halloween Legion thanks you all!

The Rondo Awards honor the best in classic horror creativity, research, and film preservation.

Congratulations to Terry Beatty, Mike Mignola, Steve Niles, Craig Yoe and many more, as well!

http://rondoaward.com/rondoaward.com/blog/?p=32

The Halloween Legion at NYCC!

Just finishing up a wonderful 2013 NYCC with a few pics on my blog. 

It was a fantastically exciting and amazing Comic Con this year!

It started with an inspirational panel entitled "Creatively Energizing Your Students With Comic Books And The Arts" with fellow panelists Alex Simmons, Bonnie Erickson, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, Louis Mitchell, Mike Lopez, Noel MacNeal, and Paul Castiglia. 

What an incredible bunch of people! It was truly an honor to be on the same panel with them and to be able to speak with the audience about how to engage children in the arts. I spoke a bit about things how The Halloween Legion™ inspires me with its positive messages. My partner on The Halloween Legion, co-owner and writer Martin Powell unfortunately could not attend NYCC but he was there in Halloween spirit. 

I was very grateful to be able to contribute and answer everyones questions. If I did miss you after the panel, please feel free to contact me here.

I was humbled by the moment and will never forget it. 
Here is a photo of us all on the panel.

Here we all are after the panel sharing a few heartfelt laughs. 

The next day was my drawing workshop at the Kids Comic Con Family Room.

Alex Simmons and Mike Lopez created some really great events and it was an honor to be a part of their wonderful curriculum this year at NYCC. 

My good friend, and fellow amazing artist!, Steve Price, helped me out during the drawing workshop and kindly took this cool pic of my session on the NYCC banner. 

For my drawing workshop I showed how to draw your favorite Halloween characters using simple shapes like circles, squares, and rectangles. And just for fun, I created my own Witch's costume for The Halloween Legion occasion!

Here I am with Lauren Marchisotto at NYCC, who had a fantastic steampunk costume on! Thanks to Noel MacNeal for the awesome pic!

It was a great drawing session and some of the kids drew amazing illustrations of Autumn the Cat! If your reading this and you or your kids drew some of the characters please email me, I would love to post them to the Halloween Legion fan page on Facebook! 

On Sunday, I had a signing session at the Dark Horse Comics Booth to sign THE HALLOWEEN LEGION graphic novel. Here a few pics of the signing. It was a lot of fun!

It was a really great event! So many wonderful kids, and adults who are kids at heart, approached me and talked about hoe they really loved the characters! I hope I was able to answer any and all questions everyone had about THE HALLOWEEN LEGION but if not please feel free to contact me or Martin Powell (co-owner and writer) here or on our blogs. We will be happy to answer your questions and continue Halloween through out the year! 

Happy Halloween and see you all next NYCC!

The Halloween Legion™ Martin Powell and Diana Leto

The Halloween Legion On Sale NOW!

Get 'em while their HOT!
There have been many posts on research and development and fun exploratories during the process of this graphic novel and here it is, The Halloween Legion On Sale NOW!

Thank you Martin Powell for all your support and creativity! 
Heroes read comics too!

Artwork © Diana Leto
The Halloween Legion™ Martin Powell and Diana Leto

And the reviews have been stellar! Check out some of these reviews here and order your copy on the last link below!

http://skeletonpete.com/?p=7109

fanboycomics

comiccritique

darkhorse

Happy Holidays from The Halloween Legion

A little early holiday greeting from THE HALLOWEEN LEGION!
Happy Holidays from the GHOST Of Christmas Presents (and Autumn too!)

For prints of this piece or more of my artwork please go to my store website here or feel free to contact me at diana@dianaleto.com.

Molly from The Halloween Legion

Did a quick water color last night of Molly from THE HALLOWEEN LEGION.
I wanted to show her devilish and inquisitive side.
Hope you all enjoy! 22 days till Halloween!

For prints of this piece or more of my artwork please go to my store website here or feel free to contact me at diana@dianaleto.com.

Heroes read comics too!

With both Halloween and the HALLOWEEN LEGION graphic novel (From Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse Comics) approaching, I wanted to create a fun illustration of the characters reading together. The children in the illustration are from ONCE UPON A HALLOWEEN (the back-up story to HALLOWEEN LEGION) reading comics with the World's Weirdest Super Heroes: The Halloween Legion. After all, Heroes read comics too!

Comics are a great form of story telling that delivers positive results, from social interactions to educational platforms to just having a good laugh. I've always felt comics are a wonderfully engaging medium for both children and adults.

So be a Hero and pick up some comics for a friend, your kids, or just for you! 

For prints of this piece or more of my artwork please go to my store website here or feel free to contact me at diana@dianaleto.com.

Once Upon a Halloween!

A new page from "Once Upon a Halloween", an autobiographic story to be featured in Martin Powell's upcoming HALLOWEEN LEGION graphic novel.

This Trick 'R Treating adventure is an origin story in which I had the honor of illustrating Martin as a child and his family. On this page, his mother appears here as herself. The Skeleton and Devil are his older brothers Wayne and Rick. The pint-sized Frankenstein Monster is Martin. 

This spooky real-life adventure indirectly inspired the creation of THE HALLOWEEN LEGION many years later.

From Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse Comics.

The Halloween Legion ™ Martin Powell. Artwork © Diana Leto

Trick or Treat!

A panel-in-progress on a special back-up story, "Once Upon a Halloween", to be featured in Martin Powell's upcoming HALLOWEEN LEGION graphic novel from Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse Comics.

This spooky real-life adventure indirectly inspired the creation of THE HALLOWEEN LEGION many years later!

The Halloween Legion ™ Martin Powell. Artwork © Diana Leto

Punkin's!

A fun panel for the special back-up story to be featured in the upcoming HALLOWEEN LEGION graphic novel, entitled "Once Upon a Halloween." 

From Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse Comics.
The Halloween Legion ™ Martin Powell. Artwork © Diana Leto

Once Upon a Halloween- Panoramic panel in-progress

Here's a panoramic panel for the special back-up story to be featured in the upcoming HALLOWEEN LEGION graphic novel. A little more rendering to go but thought I would share this fun in-progess :)

Once Upon a Halloween- Illustrations in Progress!

Thought I'd post a sneak-peek of the first page for the special back-up story to be featured in the upcoming HALLOWEEN LEGION graphic novel. A little more rendering to go but here is a work in progress of my illustrating process.

It's an autobiographical tale of Martin Powell's first experience with Trick 'R Treating when he was six years old. Here I illustrate him (the kid in the  Frankenstein Monster mask) and his two older brothers Wayne and Rick.

From Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse Comics.
http://dletoillustrations.blogspot.com/

The Halloween Legion ™ Martin Powell. Artwork © Diana Leto

Martin Powell discussing The Halloween Legion and more!!!

Martin Powell's podcast interview from The Book Cave with Ric Croxton andArthur Sippo is now available. They mainly talked about The HALLOWEEN LEGION, but also touched on THE SPIDER, SHERLOCK HOLMES, and TARZAN, and more!

Also discussed is my work with Martin on THE HALLOWEEN LEGION back-up story entitled "Once Upon a Halloween." 

Illustrations to follow shortly. 
Thanks for the shout out Martin Powell!

http://thebookcave.libsyn.com/webpage/the-book-cave-episode-181-martin-powell

Character studies for Martin Powell's "Once Upon a Halloween"

Character studies for Martin Powell's "Once Upon a Halloween", a back-up story to be featured in his upcoming HALLOWEEN LEGION graphic novel. It's an autobiographical tale of his first experience with Trick 'R Treat when he was six years old, which indirectly inspired the creation of THE HALLOWEEN LEGION itself many years later.

Here, I am playing around with textures and personalities in hopes of creating something as fantastic as the story itself!


The Halloween Legion ™ Martin Powell. Artwork © Diana Leto

Freddy Fright Finds a Friend

Inspired by Martin Powell's THE HALLOWEEN LEGION, here is my portrayal of one of his Chapters entitled  "Freddy Fright Finds a Friend".

 

In this Chapter,  Molly and the Ghost talk for the first time. It's a truly lovely and delicate scene that instantaneously touched me. I wanted to focus in on the flickering flame so that I could emphasize Molly's sympathetic face when first encountering the Ghost's questioning tale. I hope I've done Martin Powel's 'The Halloween Legion' justice, as it continues to be an amazing source of magic and inspiration to me!

Halloween Legion Sketches

Some more Halloween Legion sketches based on the amazing stories of Martin Powell.
Final to be posted soon. Here are my roughs

My interpretation of Martin Powell's "The Halloween Legion"

Check out my interpretation of Martin Powel's 'The Halloween Legion'. It was a lot of fun to create a mixed-media rendering of the characters. Hope ya 'all enjoy!

His amazing book 'The Halloween Legion' has been nominated for three Pulp Ark Awards, including Best Novel, Best Author, and Best Cover (Cover art shown in the link attached below)
Check it out! It's available in both Print & Kindle editions (this is the Print link)

http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Legion-Martin-Powell/dp/0983953201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327168667&sr=8-1

Here's a little on my process.
The original was mostly Pencil, Prismacolor, and watercolor.
It's a little rougher but I do enjoy this version.

My favorite was definitely the cat. I really enjoy his personality. 

I did some line art to really focus on the shape of the characters:

Afterwards I brought the image into photoshop and really pumped up the color, shape, and dimension. I wanted to get a very vibrant Halloween feel and get a lot of personality out of the characters. 

I enjoy all the versions and the final very much.